Video 4:09
Foodbank feeds thousands

Matthew StanleyUpdated
Sat 20 Mar 2010, 1:15 PM AEDT

Despite distributing three million kilograms of donated food each year the VicRelief Foodbank can't keep up with demand.

Transcript

JOSEPHINE CAFAGNA, PRESENTER: Every day around Victoria, thousands of free meals are served up to the homeless and disadvantaged and each week thousands of food parcels are distributed to struggling families. It's a mammoth task with much of the work done by charities and non-profit community groups, but it's a job made easier by the VicRelief Foodbank. Matthew Stanley reports.

MATTHEW STANLEY, REPORTER: The Flemington and Kensington community lunch serves up meals for 40 every Monday. Just one lunch takes hours of work by a dedicated team of volunteers and a lot of food. Scenes like this are repeated all over Melbourne every day of the year.

CHARITY RECIPIENT: All I know is it's donated from somewhere. I don't know. And I think a lot of it is by them.

PHILLIP HUNT, VICRELIEF FOODBANK: There's three million kilos of food that goes through this place every year and it's worth about $20 million.

MATTHEW STANLEY: Phillip Hunt's last job was overseeing international relief efforts for World Vision. He says feeding Victorians who might otherwise go hungry is a similar sized job.

PHILLIP HUNT: It's very like a relief operation that World Vision has had some experience in, so it's familiar from that point of view.

MATTHEW STANLEY: The difference is this warehouse, run by the Vic Relief Foodbank is stocked almost entirely with food that would otherwise have been thrown out.

PHILLIP HUNT: Most organisations have some spare capacity and they wonder what to do with it. And there's a lot of food out there that gets thrown away, and we can say to organisations that have that, either bring it here, or tell us about it and we'll find a way to get it here. We're the kind of central collection point that makes it easy for people not to throw it away and to actually put it to good use.

MATTHEW STANLEY: 450 charities and non-profits rely on Foodbank to help feed an estimated one in 20 Victorians that in any one year will find themselves without food and unable to afford more.

CHARITY RECIPIENT II: There has been times that we have gone hungry.

SILVANA LAIRD: And there are just so many out there that are in our situation that are either too embarrassed or don't want to go and seek help.

MATTHEW STANLEY: Faced with that sort of demand, Foodbank's constantly looking for new sources of food. The depot's set up on the floor of the Melbourne wholesale market has helped increase donations of fruit and vegetables.

FRANK BUGGE, FRUIT AND VEGETABLE WHOLESALER: We know that it all gets cooked up and everything and it's going to a good cause and that, and that's all we need to know really. At least we know that someone's eating it; it's not gettin' thrown out.

MATTHEW STANLEY: But there are still gaps in what people are prepared to give away.

PHILLIP HUNT: Actually most of this rice we buy because there are some things you just can't get because they're in short supply.

MATTHEW STANLEY: So if there's a rice donor out there?

PHILLIP HUNT: Yes, if there's a rice donor out there, please, we need the rice.

MATTHEW STANLEY: They also need more of just about everything. Foodbank's clients are already being rationed. In the next few years it's hoping to quadruple turnover just to keep up with demand.

PHILLIP HUNT: There's still waste that's not being taken advantage of. We're not in every supermarket in the state and we're not in every supermarket chain in the state, for example. And there's still stuff that's going to the dump that really ought to be coming to us, so there's an opportunity for us to do more.

MATTHEW STANLEY: There's no shortage of people willing to testify to the results.